


East of the Sun, West of the Moon (And Other Tales)

by soft_october



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Canon-Typical Violence, Curse Breaking, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fantasy, Fluff and Humor, Genre Savvy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-01-12 17:50:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october
Summary: Ongoing series of one shot fairy tale retellings starring two ethereal beings much better at loving the Earth and each other than following orders, sticking to tropes, and not mucking about in stories that don't belong to them.Newest Tale: The Tinder-Box- Crowley returns from a tempting with nothing to show for it but bad chocolate, and he is about to learn all about translation errors, witches with meddling grandmothers, that some princes locked in towers aren't really princes at all, why angels make bad research subjects, and why it might be a good idea to fund the education system so public executions can stop being the primary form of entertainment.





	1. East of the Sun, West of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a series inspired by my love of lesser known fairy tales. Each chapter will be a standalone fic, and I'll make sure to put any warnings at the top of each chapter, as well as in the tags.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley finds himself in trouble with his supervisors in hell, and decides to insert himself into a story to lure an entire town into ruin. It goes about as well as anything else he's tried.

Once upon a time there lived a demon who, it was said, was not very much like a demon at all. He lived on Earth, in a very pleasant little cottage on the edge of a small village, surrounded on all sides by the beautiful and bountiful gardens that were his pride and joy. Oh, he would do his fair bit of tempting to be sure - a man fencing in some property that didn’t quite belong to him here, a girl hunting the great herds of deer in the king’s forest (and never getting caught) there - but most of his days were consumed by cultivating his plants, wishing that television would just hurry up and be invented already, and being dreadfully bored most hours of the day (and more than a mite lonely, though he would be loath to admit it).

And so it happened that one day the demon, whose name was Crowley, came up for a quarterly review (Hell was nothing if not appallingly bureaucratic) and it was discovered that he had been neglecting his duties. His supervisor, not the sort of demon that tolerated any kind of slacking off in the ranks, rang him up through the set of panpipes hanging behind the door for just such an occasion.

_CROWLEY_

The voice wanted to boom, but the pipes were only made of reed, and so it was more of a low whistle. Crowley, who had been busy putting the fear of G-S- _Someone_ into his turnips begrudgingly rose from the garden to answer the call.

“Yeah?”

Crowley was a very casual brand of demon.

 _WE DIDN’T SEND YOU UP THERE FOR FUN AND GAMES. YOUR NUMBERS ARE WAY DOWN FROM LAST CENTURY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IF THOSE BASTARDS FROM PANDEMONIUM BEAT US THIS DECADE I’LL NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT AT THE COMPANY PICNIC?_ Crowley was never invited to the company picnic and truly couldn’t care less what those bastards in Pandemonium did, but he was very interested in being left to his own devices on Earth, of which he was perhaps overly fond. Thus, he had been developing a contingency plan ever since that dark and ominous castle appeared on the edge of the other side of the forest a few months back.

“I understand your displeasure,” he began loftily. He might not have cared for the game but he certainly knew how to play it. “But I’ve been planning something really spectacular, the boys downstairs are going to love it. Picture this: an entire village of wailing mothers and children, turning their eyes from God and begging for mercy from our most nefarious lord and master himself.”

 _GO ON._ The voice was intrigued, and that was always a good sign.

Crowley told them about the castle on the edge of the forest, which, as it was rumoured among the women of that village, was home to a terrifying monster who wished to feast on the flesh of young maidens.

“Now this is pretty standard stuff,” he continued. “The beastie will select a beautiful maiden from the village, she’ll fall in love with him despite his physical faults, the power of patience and faith and all that, blah, blah blah, he’ll turn into a handsome prince and they’ll live happily ever after with peace and prosperity reigning throughout the land.”

_INDEED, PAR FOR THE COURSE. BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOU?_

“Yes, well, here’s where it gets good.” Crowley rubbed his hands together, eagerly. “I’m going to go in the maiden’s place and disrupt the whole thing. No falling in love, no handsome prince, the village falls into ruin and before you know it you’ve got a line out the door of starving peasants desperate to sell you their souls for a crust of bread, all cursing heaven’s name while they do it.”

_THIS IS MOST ACCEPTABLE. WE WILL SCHEDULE ANOTHER MEETING FOR SIX MONTHS TIME TO REVIEW YOUR PROGRESS. HAVE A BLIGHTED DAY._

Crowley was already back to tormenting his vegetables.

* * *

A few weeks later, a poor miller and his three gorgeous, maiden daughters were seated around their fire on a cruelly dark evening, while the rain fell and the wind blew wild and rough through the cracks in the walls. They were so consumed with their needlework or sock darning or what have you that the first three (exceptionally polite) knocks on the window went totally unnoticed, and the thing outside was reduced to hammering on the glass to get someone’s attention. The father went out to see what was making such a racket, and what should he see but an eight foot tall monster made of brilliant white light that stuttered and shook like a the stub of a candle at the end of its wick. He thought he could sense fire and wings and many eyes within the light, but it burned his eyes and he felt that prostrating himself in the mud was perhaps a better use of his last few moments of existence. When the thing began to speak the miller covered his ears, but it spoke so softly that he was obliged to pull his hands away.

“Pardon?” he asked, face in the dirt.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” said the creature. “Can you hear me alright?” If the miller didn’t know any better, he would say that the voice was almost apologetic.

“Yes, that’s fine, thanks.”

“Oh good. Now, well, this is a little embarrassing, but I’ve come to ask a favor -”

Now the miller, who considered himself a man of the world despite his poverty, knew all the stories, and had been expecting something extraordinary to happen to his family ever since his two eldest daughters ended up greedy and vain and his youngest daughter turned out kind to all creatures, a paragon of maidenly virtue, and the loveliest of her sisters besides. Though he had been picturing an old woman with a golden apple, or a plucky youth with a talking cat to appear one day, he wasn’t about to let the opportunity to better his situation pass him by, and visions of palaces and riches danced in his head.

“Yes of course,” the man said, without waiting for the luminous horror to finish its request. “You should take my youngest, she’s the purest and the fairest of them all.” There was a wrenching sob from inside the small hut behind them.  

“Much as I hate to interrupt a man handing over his daughter to a strange and terrible vision without so much as asking her first -” here the wailing from the daughter inside grew louder, “I volunteer to go with you.” These words were spoken by the demon, who had sauntered out from between the trees. His ostentatious black and silver cloak was dry despite the rain, and his eyes blazed yellow. The monster hadn’t been expecting this at all, and swayed from side to side, dithering. Crowley could almost see the light warping where a normal man would be wringing his hands.

“This isn’t really the way it’s supposed to go,” it said, after a bit. “She’s got to say no twice, and then on the third night, after her family has, well, basically bullied her into accepting, then she’s to go with me.” The tone of the creature made clear that this sort of thing was all rather distasteful to it to begin with (but its voice contained the weariness that came from following orders one didn’t always agree with for the last several millennia).

“I mean, that’s well and good, kidnapping a girl from her home and family and all that, but isn’t a willing sacrifice all the easier to manage?” The monster agreed that indeed it was, and accepted the demon’s proposal.

“But what about me?” said the miller, watching his dreams of gold rapidly turning into dust. “What about my daughter?” Crowley, who had seen the man’s youngest daughter sneaking off with the blacksmith’s wife on more than one occasion, assured him that all would be well, and she would never want for swords, armor, or horseshoes.

“Well, that’s something then,” he said, but the demon could tell he wasn’t happy about it.

Meanwhile, the bright and shining thing had extended its (according to Crowley) woefully under-groomed wings.

“I’m - ah - I’m supposed to carry you,” it said, sheepishly.

“No thanks.” Crowley unfurled his perfectly kept wings. “I’ve got my own.” There was an awkward sort of silence between them.

“Right then,” it said. “Follow me, I suppose.”

* * *

 

They flew a long, long, way until they came to the tower beyond the forest. There was no door, but when the monster knocked upon the stone a door opened, and they came into a charming antechamber all draped with lovely tapestries, golden sconces, and candles that Crowley was certain were magicked to never diminish. There was also an alarming number of books that covered every surface, and were spilling out onto the floor where they lay in hasty stacks.

“Bit of a reader, are you?” The thing shrugged, bashful, and when they came into a dining room where a fine feast was laid out for two, Crowley was actually starting to congratulate himself on a job well done. How long could this curse last? A year? Three years? Surely no more than that. And all he had to do was enjoy a nice warm castle with excellent food and good wine. A few plants here and there and it would truly be a paradise.

They shared a pleasant meal, even if the conversation was a bit strained (the monster had been expecting many more tears and many less questions about what he thought of the lamb, and was a bit slow to change course). After Crowley had refused dessert and the creature had finished both servings of a delicate and delightful meringue, the demon decided that he would see what the sleeping accommodations would be. He was led to a room with a bed that could fit seven, piled high and white with silken pillows and fine down quilts. Crowley climbed into bed at once and sighed with comfort. The room went pitch dark, and the monster took off his terrible form, but Crowley couldn't see what he looked like.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked, when it bid him goodnight and made to leave the room.

“Heavens no!” it exclaimed. “We’ve only just met!”

“Well what were you planning on doing with that maiden then?” asked the demon, who felt that the story had gone a bit off the rails even before his interference. (The beast didn't fit the definition of one, and was rather a nice sort of being, whatever it was.)

“Well I don’t know exactly,” it replied. “But it wasn't going to be _that._ ” The demon thought this over for a moment or two before deciding that what he really needed to get a handle on the situation was a long nap.

“Suit yourself, said Crowley, and proceeded to fall fast asleep and remained that way for five consecutive days.

The creature spent that time wandering through the castle, reading, sipping its cocoa, and wondering if it had somehow gotten the whole thing wrong from the start. 

* * *

When Crowley awoke, he spent a little while enjoying the castle and much more time enjoying the company, especially once the thing had summoned up a pair of dark glasses to shield Crowley’s eyes from the great and terrible light it emitted at all times, except in the velvet  darkness when the demon couldn't see him anyway. It was good to talk to something non-human that wasn’t another demon, though he couldn’t say _what_ the thing had originally been.

Eventually he got round to asking for its name (because referring to the monster as ‘it’ in his head was altogether rather tiresome) and it’s name was Aziraphale. The pair became fast friends, mostly because the conversations quite charming and there wasn't much benefit in being enemies with the only other being he got to interact with on a daily basis. But it didn't take too long for the demon to realize that his new friend often seemed distant and depressed, and he suspected it might have to do with the curse.

“Can you talk about it?” Crowley had asked him sometime around the second month, “Or is it one of those things that’s impolite or impossible to speak of?” The resounding silence told him everything he needed to know, and they moved on to a discussion about Ancient Greece. (They both missed the figs drizzled with honey.) Things continued on like this for some time, but Crowley was growing increasingly frustrated that Aziraphale never shared his bed.

“Even just for sleeping,” he had whined when one night, four months into Crowley’s voluntary imprisonment, when Aziraphale made to leave him again. “I bet it’s part of the curse, may as well get it over with.” The monster, who had identified that the genre-savvy demon would stumble upon this salient point some time or another, gave in, and put out all the lights in the room, transformed into his true self, and laid down beside him.

“You’re so warm,” said Crowley, as he wrapped himself around Aziraphale, nuzzling into his neck. “And soft.”

“Yes, well, you’re not - you’re very -” Aziraphale was flustered, and Crowley wondered what sort of story it was where the ‘beast’ started blushing like a bride on her wedding night the moment things got a little cozy.

“Go on?” Crowley whispered.

“Beautiful,” Aziraphale said. “You are, I mean. And I do like you very much.”

Not much sleeping was done that night, or the next few nights that followed it, after all.

* * *

Things went on quite happily for a while, but Crowley realized that the six months were almost up, and he would have to report back to his supervisor again of how the scheme was all going (barring the intimate details, those were for Crowley alone). On the appointed day he found a room with a harp (the most un-hell like instrument he could possibly imagine) and waited for the inevitable.

 _CROWLEY._ The voice hummed along the strings, sounding as divine and uncorrupt as a choir of nuns at vespers. _WE HAVE SOME RATHER BAD NEWS._

“And what is that?” he asked, because, honestly, this was all going rather well for him and it was so like hell to muck things up just when he had his ducks all in a row.

 _WE FEAR THAT WE KNOW THE IDENTITY OF THIS MONSTER._ Crowley replied that he didn’t see why it should be of their concern, but his supervisor continued.

_WE BELIEVE HE IS OUR ENEMY, THE ADVERSARY, AN ANGEL OF GREAT POSITION AND POWER. HE INTENDS TO CORRUPT YOU, OR SMITE YOU, AND HE MUST BE STOPPED._

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” Crowley disagreed. He had known angels, even _been_ one, long ago, and Aziraphale was nothing like them. They would speak nothing but love and righteousness out one side of their mouth while they went and started the Crusades with the other. Aziraphale was, well, he was Aziraphale. He was a bit absent minded and had an irritating streak of goodness in him, but he was also intelligent, amusing, and kind in ways Crowley had encountered in neither the humans he met in his long time upon the earth nor the angels he had once lived alongside in Heaven. Not once had Aziraphale ever said anything about Crowley’s unusual eyes, for one, or even tried to smite him. Plus, their nighttime activities were quite gratifying indeed and certainly an angel would never entertain that sort of thing with a demon. “He’s not like them at all, I would know.”

_WE MUST BE SURE. YOU WILL TAKE THIS._

At this bit of black candle appeared suddenly in Crowley's hand. It tickled with hellish energy. He slipped it into a pocket.

_TONIGHT YOU MUST WAIT UNTIL IT IS ASLEEP. LIGHT THE CANDLE. YOU WILL SEE._

Then the voice in the harp was gone.

* * *

Crowley did not like following orders, but he was a curious demon, and the offer to finally see what his companion looked like proved to be too great a temptation. After they had gone to bed, he waited until the gentle snoring beside him had become deep and regular, and then he lit the candle. He let the light shine down on the the creature, and Crowley was horrified to discover that Aziraphale was well and truly an angel, and also the most handsome angel Crowley had ever seen, all curly blonde locks and perfect skin and long eyelashes. The demon supposed his eyes were blue, and he longed to see them in the thin light of the morning. Crowley also realized, with a resigned sort of giddy sadness, that in spite of all his attempts to wriggle out of it he had somehow tripped and plunged headfirst into the story anyway.

He had fallen in love.

The demon knew he was probably in trouble with _someone_ over this, but right then all he knew was that if he didn’t kiss Aziraphale at that very moment his heart might pound right out of his chest and make a mess all over the clean white sheets. So Crowley leaned over to kiss Aziraphale’s gently on the lips, as he had done many times before in the dark. But as he did, three drops of hot tallow from the candle dripped onto Aziraphale’s shoulder, and he woke up, startled and dismayed.

“What have you done?” Aziraphale cried. “Now you have ruined it for us both, for if you had held out only this one year, I would have been free! Heaven laid this curse upon me as a punishment for my idolatry of the world before the Host. If I could have proved that the Earth was full of faith and patience and love for one year -” The angel sadly shoot his head. “But now all ties are broken between us, and I must return to Heaven forever.” Crowley, furious with himself for being taken in so thoroughly by Hell (for he supposed that they had engineered this whole thing, as punishment for his own demonic failings) cried and grieved, but there was nothing to be done, and as dawn approached Aziraphale would have to go.

“I cannot come with you,” said Crowley, for he had been a denizen of Heaven before, and knew the rules. “But can I follow after you?” Aziraphale thought for a moment.

“I suppose you could? But it lays east of the sun and west of the moon, and my dear, you’ll never be able to find your way there.” Crowley took this as a challenge, and kissed his angel, and told him that before the year was out, they would be together once more. In for a penny, in for a pound, if he was this deep in the story already.

The next morning, when Crowley awoke (and he did not remember falling asleep, but supposed that it must have happened), both Aziraphale and the castle were gone, and he was lying half in a scummy pond that smelled like dead frogs.

Crowley understood that this was not an auspicious beginning to his quest.

He supposed that he could sit in his wet trousers and cloak and have himself a good cry, but afterwards his cheeks would be as damp as his cloak and he wouldn’t be any closer to Aziraphale, so instead he set out on his way.

Crowley flew for many days, until he came to a high cliff. A boy sat there, dressed all in white, a bit too old to be a child, too young to be a man, and he was weaving a crown of long grass. The demon (who was no fool and knew that these sorts of things didn’t just happen way out in the middle of nowhere) asked the boy if he knew which was the way east of the sun and west of the moon.

“Oh, you’re wondering about the angel, aren’t you?” the boy, whose name was Brian, asked. “Maybe you are the one who should have had him?”

Crowley felt that the question was a bit too forward for anyone to be asking, and absolutely not one he was inclined to provide an answer to, especially not to a child. Instead he gave a helpless sort of shrug.

“No, it’s you, I can tell. He has been taken away to Heaven, which lies east of the sun and west of the moon, and you’ll get there too late or never. I don't know the way, but you may visit my friend, Wensleydale, who’s on the next cliff over. He might know more.” Crowley thanked the boy, and spread his wings to take flight.

“Wait!” Brian said. “Take this crown with you, you may have use of it.” So Crowley placed the crown of long grasses upon his head, and then flew a long time until he came to another cliff, as Brian had foretold, where sat another boy, all in black. He was fiddling with a bit of string and twigs that one (if one was more forgiving than most) might have called a set of scales. Crowley asked him if he knew the road that would take him east of the sun and west of the moon, and he answered, as the first boy had, that he didn’t really know, but his friend Pepper was the next cliff over, and she might know more.

“Do you ever get together?” Crowley asked. “Like, the cliffs thing, how does that all work? How do you communicate?” Wensleydale gave him a funny sort of look, but didn’t reply, and before Crowley took off to go through the whole rigmarole again with whatever strange child lived on the next cliff over, Wensleydale tucked the scales into the pocket of his cloak.

“You might have need of them,” he said.

When Crowley reached the next cliff it was indeed the same thing all over again, although this time the child was a girl in red, and she was playing with a sharp stick she referred to as a sword.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said when she saw him. “I suppose you are the one who should have had the angel?”

“I did and I’d like to again,” said Crowley, who was beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that these children were not all they seemed. “So if you could point me the way east of the sun and west of the moon I’d appreciate it. And no sending me off to someone else. You’re the third child and I know these things work in threes.” But Pepper slowly shook her head and shrugged.

“There is another. He is in the field below us. Take my sword with you. You may have use for it.”

Crowley - for the first time since his quest began all those months ago when it was just a stupid, half-baked plan to lead a village into temptation by meddling about in the proper order of things and maybe meet a cool monster living the woods - was afraid. A fourth child was not part of any of the stories he knew.

He landed on the field with trepidation. The fourth child was another boy like Brian and Wensleydale, but also not like them at all. The demon sensed a vast and incomparable power within the fourth child, who looked over Crowley’s crown and scales and sword with an approving eye.

“I’m Adam,” the child said. “You’re doing alright so far, but remember that Aziraphale is the one who has to use the sword.” Crowley was very confused and asked him what he was talking about, but Adam only smiled and said that he didn’t know the way east of the sun and west of the moon, but the east wind might, and gave Crowley directions to where this wind lived.

But when Crowley arrived, the Eastern wind shook his head and told Crowley that he didn’t know the way to Heaven, but that his brother, the Western wind might.

“No,” said Crowley, pretty fed up at this point. “I’ve gone over all this with those kids, I’m not doing it again. You'll take me to the Western Wind, who will want to take me to the South Wind, who will take me to the North Wind, who is the oldest and most powerful of all. We're going to skip all of that, and you can take me to the North Wind right this instant.” The Eastern Wind meditated on this for a moment, and agreed that it would save everyone a whole lot of time and trouble, and so took Crowley straight to the home of the North Wind, doing a bit of grumbling about the proper order of things along the way.

“Of course I know the road that leads east of the sun and west of the moon,” said the North Wind, and Crowley very much wanted to shout ‘I told you so!’ at the retreating back of the Eastern Wind. “It is a quite a long way off, but if you aren’t afraid I will take you on my back and blow you there.”

Crowley was so relieved that he had finally found someone who could actually help him that he could have sobbed. No, he was not afraid, and yes, could the wind please take him east of the sun and west of the moon.

“We will set out early tomorrow morning, for we will need the whole day if we are to get there at all,” said the North Wind.

Early the next morning the North Wind woke him, and puffed herself up and blew and blew, as if they would not stop until they reached the end of the world. The sharp gusts ripped at Crowley’s feathers and tumbled him through the air, but he kept a firm hold on his crown and scales and sword.

They tore on and on, over the waves of the northern seas, over acres of forests and towns and cities, pulling water and trees and roof tiles in their wake. Just as the last rays of the sun slunk over the horizon, the wind managed to throw Crowley onto the shore before a pearly gate, but she was so exhausted she had to wait many days until she could go home again.

Crowley, expecting to be poisoned by the sacredness of heaven and combust at any moment, wandered about the gates for a minute or two, while St. Peter gave him a look that said he was about to call security if Crowley didn’t shove off. But then a heavy weight appeared on his head, and the crown of long grasses had become a fine filigree crown of blackened silver. The pocket of his cloak strained, because now it was filled with a silver set of scales instead of bits of grass and twigs. And finally, his belt sagged, the little stick sword having transformed into a short blade of razor sharp steel.

The demon looked over, and St. Peter had noticed the crown, and there was a sudden buzz of activity behind the gates until St. Peter could find someone who was qualified (and compensated well enough) to deal with this issue. The crown faintly buzzed on his head, and Crowley wondered if his various accoutrements were protecting him from Heaven’s divinity.

“Hey you,” said Gabriel, the assistant manager (because Heaven would insist on being even more thoroughly bureaucratic than Hell) that St. Peter had fetched. “That crown, what do you want for it?”

“It’s not for sale for mercy or absolution,” declared Crowley.

“Well if it’s not for sale for mercy or absolution, then what will you give it for? I understand that demons fancy themselves shrewd negotiators. I will allow you to name your own price.” Crowley considered this.

“You may have it if I may get to Aziraphale, who is stuck here, and speak alone with him for one minute.”  

Gabriel didn’t like it, but yes, it could be done. Crowley insisted on keeping the crown with him until the full minute had gone by because he wasn't an idiot, and to this Gabriel also agreed, and fetched the angel Aziraphale and positioned him against the gate that Crowley might speak to him through the bars.

“Your one minute begins now,” said Gabriel, and vanished from sight.

“Aziraphale?” said Crowley, but the angel’s face was impassive, blue eyes dull and not at all how the demon imagined they would be.

“We don’t have time for any of this,” said Crowley, and wrapped Aziraphale’s fingers around the sword.

“I’m supposed to do this three times,” Crowley was hurried and anxious, “but I’m fairly certain that this crown is the only thing keeping me from bursting into flames or something, and I never cared much for the whole threes motif in the first place.” Aziraphale tilted his head to the side, listening intently, but still without that spark of awareness. “So please,” the demon’s voice cracked, was strangled, desperate. “If I ever meant anything to you you’ll snap out of whatever brainwashing they’ve wrung you through and we can escape.” For good measure (and because it’s how these things were done) Crowley kissed him through the bars three times, once for each drop of tallow he had spilled on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

Then there was a humming sort of sound, and the sword was aflame in Aziraphale’s grip, and recognition shone in those blue eyes that were more perfect and beautiful than the demon ever could have dreamed.

“Crowley?” he murmured, confused at first, but then he beamed at the demon as if he were the only thing that mattered in Heaven, Hell, or anything in between. “You came for me? But how-”

“No time for that, angel,” said Crowley, who wanted very much to hug his angel very tightly, and would have ripped apart the bars between them if it had been in his power. “We’ve got about ten seconds before they come for you and this crown, and we have to get out of here.”

So it was that Crowley and Aziraphale, swinging a set of silver scales and a flaming sword, respectively, slammed the pearly gates open on right Gabriel’s fingers and flew from that place. At this point, Gabriel flew into such a rage that they exploded on the spot (although Crowley felt that was a bit over dramatic, even for an archangel).

As for Aziraphale and Crowley, they ran as far as they could from the Heaven that lay east of the sun and west of the moon and returned to their own version of paradise: the little village where Crowley grew his bountiful gardens. Shortly after they had taken up residence there, the miller's youngest daughter and the blacksmith's ex-wife were elected co-mayors in something of a landslide, and immediately began instituting a set of revolutionary new economic and social policies that did away with feudalism entirely and set the village up as something of an autonomous collective. (Crowley would blame Aziraphale, Aziraphale would blame Crowley, but the truth was that they both didn’t like the local lord at all, and felt that the village deserved some degree of self-determination.) And because Crowley had (in his own way) led an angel into temptation, and because Aziraphale had proved that there was faith and patience and love upon the Earth (the fact that he had found it in the form of a demon didn’t seem to be in breach of the terms of his curse), the powers that be admitted that the pair had won that round, and let them alone.

There were lazy summer days where Aziraphale would read in his chair while fondly watching Crowley criticizing the plants, cold winter nights where they would cuddle together before the fire, and there would be times when they would laugh and cry and argue and kiss and make up, and they would live happily ever after.

 


	2. The Demon With Silver Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is trapped in a dungeon beneath a church, robbed of his powers, until a familiar face appears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Violence. This is based on the fairy tale, "The Girl With Silver Hands" also known as "The Girl Without Hands." There's a happy ending, but it's not my usual lighter fare. There's some violent imagery and implications, so please keep that in mind.

  
  


The priest appears very early in the morning, but the demon does not talk.

The holy man tries for quite a long while, plying all the tricks that he has used on others, all the tricks he has used to break others, but the demon is not like others, and when it is done the priest says to the jailer “Keep water away from him, so his blood will thicken in his veins. Otherwise I have no power over him.” He is disgusted and furious and the demon delights in his frustration.

The jailer is deeply pious and exceedingly good at his job, and does what he is told. But the demon does not need water, nor wine nor meat. The scared nature of the church above them deadens his powers, but he is unearthly, tentative. Fourteen mortals were brought here with him, whittled away by torture and malnourishment and fear, until only he remained. He outlived them. He might outlive this jailer and this priest, if he is unlucky. Discorporation would be a blessing, and he makes a choking, terrible noise that would be a laugh if his throat were not so dry, to think anything might be a blessing.

Escape would be ideal, but it seems too distant a reality. And yet, as his clothes turn to rags and his eyes go hollow, he waits and he hates and he hopes.

In a week the priest returns, again awfully early, even before the one small arched window set high above the cell can lose the four stars the demon counts over and over again in the weeks, months? that he has been trapped here.

And the priest tries again with all his horrors, but the demon will not talk and will not die.

“Cut off his hands,” the priest says, as if in a fit of pique, a whim. “Otherwise I cannot get to him.” The jailer, familiar with violence on a much grander scale than this, believes that to do so little is almost a mercy.

But the demon is not so strong that he does not scream, anyway.

 

The priest comes a third time, accompanied by another in priestly vestments, only this one speaks in a strangled little voice and smells like quiet rage. When the demon, stained all over with tears and dirt and sweat and blood, looks up into the newcomer’s face, the color of old porridge.

That… the face isn’t familiar, but the eyes are, the eyes don’t belong in their surroundings and his mind thrashes, eager and desperate in its attempt to find the name to fit the visage, hammering that this is Important. The new priest, though, who is well fed, well rested, and in a heightened state of anxiety, recognizes those yellow eyes in an instant, and there is the sudden smack of flesh against stone as the jailer and the priest beside them tumble to the ground where they stand, fast asleep.

“Crowley?” the voice is shrill, horrified, and the finally the name creeps into the demon’s mouth, comes out as a rasped croak.

“Aziraphale.”

When was the last time they looked upon each other? Two, maybe two hundred and fifty years? At least. Crowley doesn’t remember, exactly, but there had been sunshine, and sand, and a cool breeze, and they’d fought with witty barbs instead of steel. That had been new.

It had been almost nice.

“H’lo, angel,” he croaks, with as much of a crooked grin as he can muster. He hopes its an admirable bit of work, considering the circumstances. “You’ve caught me at a disadvantage today.”

“How did you - Why didn’t you -” Aziraphale won’t meet Crowley’s eyes, glancing left and right, seeking the answer to a very different question than the one he has just asked, one that Crowley cannot fathom as he is.  

“The church,” Crowley explains, with a flick of his nose upward. He can answer that, at least. Aziraphale doesn’t say anything, keeps shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, more agitated than he’s ever seen him, more uncomfortable even than that time in Egypt, when they met on the night that death came for all the firstborn and Crowley had raged at him, accused him of innocent blood on his hands.

He wonders if the angel will kill him. They’ve never killed each other, never come so close, but he is coherent enough to realize that _this_ time it might be the most merciful thing, the most divine thing, that perhaps the angel can reason himself into a more visceral sort of thwarting than they’re used to. But Aziraphale’s face is descending and Crowley thinks he’s falling like the priest so he puts out his hands to catch him, instinctively, and then what's left of his arms is between them, throbbing like a sore.

Aziraphale takes one long, agonized look at what’s been done to him, the truncated wrists, the blackened cauterization. Crowley politely turns away as the angel retches up his breakfast.

Then Aziraphale is crawling on his knees towards him, through the filth and the damp to grab his arms, and Crowley prepares himself for discorporation with a sense of something that might be relief.

It’s not so bad, after all.

But the angel isn’t killing him, rather, he’s doing the exact opposite, in fact, and Crowley senses the appalling holiness, that incessant prickling since he was first brought here, swells a hundred fold. There is fear then, real fear such that the priest and his underlings could never foster within the demon no matter how many thumbscrews they employed, and he snatches his arms from out of the angel’s divine grasp.

“No smiting,” he says, weakly, yet if the angel is in some kind of zealous fervour Crowley is in no condition to stop him. “Just kill me.” He leans his head against the wall, exhausted, and he waits.

Aziraphale freezes.

“I’m not trying to smite you,” he mumbles, but Crowley isn’t listening. Those yellow eyes are glazed and unfocused, staring up at the stone ceiling. He wonders how long the demon has been here. Long enough for his cheeks to sink in and his skin to turn papery, long enough to see heaven knows what in this abysmal house of horrors. The angel wonders if hell is like this, or if this is worse.

“Crowley?” Still no response.

Aziraphale is rapidly approaching something resembling panic, wavering, his loyalties and adherence to the ineffable plan coming apart at the seams the longer he stares at the body in front of him that’s been so mutilated in the name of the divine, as he thinks of what he’s seen since the priest brought him here, so proud to display what he had done in the name of god. “A demon,” the priest had said. “A real demon.” Aziraphale hadn’t believed it, and now he wishes he had gone when he heard the rumors weeks ago. He could have - he should have, but Crowley is a _demon_ he shouldn’t -

A cooler set of thoughts take hold.

Crowley is a demon, yes, but he cannot just - _this_ cannot be part of the plan. Aziraphale has to, needs to fix this, to make it right. But Crowley won’t let him heal him, doesn’t trust the sacred power within, just as strongly as Aziraphale feels deep in every mote of his being that he cannot leave the demon thus, that he has to do _something._

So he does.

Struck by a memory of a brilliant silversmith in Constantinople, he snatches the swords from the priest and the jailer, and an instant later he's holding a pair of fully articulated silver hands. He holds them out to Crowley.  

“Please - let me - please.” The cleverly crafted metalworks tremble in Aziraphale’s grip.

Crowley focuses on what Aziraphale is offering and studies his face, carefully, decides that he doesn’t think it’s a trick. The angel doesn’t - wouldn’t deceive, (can he, even?) and yet when he nods once, he still braces himself for a terrible thwarting indeed, prepares himself to be ripped to shreds.

Instead, the sensation that washes over him is more like an embrace than anything else. He starts because it’s the first pleasant sensation he’s felt in too long, and he goes red in the face with shame and embarrassment when a whine escapes him.

“There, all done,” says Aziraphale. The demon glances down at his arms for the first time in many days, is pleased when the image doesn't make him queasy. This isn't so bad. He makes an attempt to stand, but finds he cannot.

The angel picks Crowley up by his bony shoulders with gentle hands. Crowley wobbles on his feet for a moment and Aziraphale allows the demon to lean heavily on him as they make their slow, wavering way out of this dungeon.

All the priests, all the guards, all asleep. No one stops them.

The angel doesn’t let go of him until they’re well away from the church, where Crowley can feel the fire of his powers returning. He doesn’t thank Aziraphale, doesn’t give the angel any time to change his mind about what he's done before he’s sprinting away, wings unfurling as he takes to the sky. His frame fills out, his rags become a fine set of clothes, miracles pouring from him and wrapping with the wind in his wake.

The hands - hm.

No sacredness, no holiness in them. He flexes the joints, testing, and they're just as responsive as if they were his own, as if he had allowed the angel to heal him.

The hands he keeps.

 

* * *

 

The angel does not follow and does not seek out the demon, though he does hear rumors from time to time. A man with yellow eyes was seen near Athens, someone with silver hands visited a cruel king and made him weep, a black winged angel was spotted flying over the Ural Mountains.

On and on it goes, for seven trips around the sun. Aziraphale has wandered, has reaffirmed his faith in the ineffable plan, has almost recovered from what he saw the day he made new hands for a demon. He's somewhere or another, in the Black Forest, he thinks, in a charming little town with a charming little inn where he chooses to enjoy a meal. When he's finished he decides that perhaps he is through with travelling for the day, and he takes a room upstairs to rest and spend the evening reading.

When his candle has almost burned down to a stub, there's a soft knock at the door.

Aziraphale is an angel but he is not a fool. He recognizes he seems like easy prey to a thief: the absent minded scholar with his head in the clouds and his eyes on his books. So when he opens the door, he does it suddenly, quickly, expecting to have to miracle some miscreant or another out to the pigsty in the yard. But  no dark clad arm reaches for him, no knife poised to strike. Instead he's struck by the dim candlelight shining off the yellow eyes of the figure in the doorway.

And the glint of silver hands.

“Hello, angel,” Crowley says, shifting his weight, ready to run if he needs to. But a small smile breaks on Aziraphale's face, and that's new for both of them, certainly, so he thinks he might not have to. The angel steps aside to invite him into the room, and Crowley takes a few small steps over the threshold of the door. It's a small room, just the bed and a small table with one chair, and he doesn't know where he should sit or stand, and the tension keeps building the longer they don't say anything to each other.

“How - how have you been?” Aziraphale begins, with halting syllables. “I see you've kept the - um - the hands.” Crowley scratches the back of his head.

“That's what I came to see you about,” he mumbles. “They’re brilliant, very neat and flashy, but I was wondering if, ah, you'd like to fix them? The way you wanted to the first time?”

Aziraphale takes a step back. Surely Crowley could have fixed them himself, if he wanted. No need to seek out his adversary. Or - were they still? Had they ever been? But the demon is holding out those silver hands he made for him in a kind of hell seven years ago, and he should smite, he should -

The angel takes the silver hands gently in his, and there's a small shock between them, like the jump of static electricity when you brush past someone you fancy, and then it is over. Crowley waves fingers made of flesh, and the silver hands Aziraphale holds are cold and dead.

“Thank you, angel,” says the demon, after a beat of silence. “For… well, for all of it.” He hopes Aziraphale understands, hopes he doesn't have to explain.

“You're welcome,” the angel replies, in an airy, helpless, what-else-am-I-supposed-to-say kind of manner.

“Might I - might I have those back?” Crowley points to the metalworks Aziraphale is still holding, and wordlessly the angel hands them over, where they vanish into the demon's satchel. Aziraphale notices when he eyes the door, feeling empty, like there should be something else-

“Fancy some wine?” Crowley blurts out, words almost tripping over each other. “I know it's late but I know you're not one for sleeping.” The angel smiles again.

“That would be lovely.”

  



	3. The Golden Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale, trying to live a quiet life on a terraformed planet that happens to be run by a mad emperor, finds himself accidentally drawn into a revolution led by a team of senior citizens that he is desperately trying to prevent from being killed. And that talking snake isn't being very helpful, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is based on 'The Golden Bird.' We're back to very silly adaptations.

Upon a perfectly terraformed planet on the outer rim of the galaxy, there lived an emperor who had a beautiful garden (and why should it not be, when all the resources of the planet were concerned with its upkeep!) and in the garden stood a tree which all the scientists of the world had been commissioned to work their wonders upon; the fruit of their labours being the golden apples that hung in thick clumps from each branch. The emperor, who was quite greedy indeed, allowed none of his subjects even a glimpse of the gardens nor the apples, and these golden orbs were parsimoniously counted every morning by none other than the emperor himself. But one morning it was discovered an apple was missing, and the tyrant flew into a homicidal rage, threatening everyone and everything that came within his sight. 

His youngest son - who was smarter than his older brothers despite the fact he could never get anything to work quite right - at once went to see the angel that lived in the Capital, though he wasn’t supposed to know the being was an angel. This angel, you see, fancied himself a great master of disguise, and the people, wishing his time among them might be a pleasant one, would politely avert their gaze when he shone with holy light, or forgot to hide his wings, or left his flaming sword lying about. The angel lived in a small, humble building full to bursting with books whose origins spanned each and every corner of the galaxy, and was looked upon as an extremely learned creature by everyone. 

So the emperor’s youngest son came rushing to him the morning the missing apple was discovered, and begged that he, rumored to be the wisest creature on the planet, would aid them in its recovery, as the palace guard was useless when his father was in a rage, consumed with hiding away all the various individuals emperor had ordered executed and covering their weapons with blood from the kitchens. 

“Of course,” said the angel, Aziraphale, when the boy made his request. “I shall come back with you to the palace directly, and we will get to the bottom of the mystery.” Upon their return to the palace (and after the use of a miracle that sent the murderous emperor to his chambers with a terrible bout of indigestion), the young man showed him the scene of the crime, and though they hunted about a bit and poked around the shrubbery with a sharp stick or two, they determined that, indeed, something or someone had made off with the apple while the palace slept. The angel, in the interest of being helpful - and keeping an eye on the emperor in the meantime - said he would keep watch that night, and see if the culprit came back. 

He sat under the golden apple tree until stroke of twelve, and when the last chime of the grand palace clock sounded through the gardens he heard a strange clicking noise from somewhere above. When he looked up he saw a beautiful mechanical bird of the purest gold descending towards the tree, and it flew near another apple in order to snap it from its branch and carry it back in its golden claws. Aziraphale, who was committed to the notion that stealing was a sin, even from such a cruel emperor, took flight in pursuit but the bird was quicker, and though the angel snapped off a piece of its machinery, it got away with its prize. 

The next morning when Aziraphale showed the object to the emperor and explained what had happened, the despot immediately imagined an entire robotic aviary army he could use to invade nearby planets, monitor his people, and replace that inept palace guard, and declared there would be an investigation at once to determine where the bird had come from and if they could be replicated. The angel, realizing he may have sparked dreams of interplanetary imperialism and a police state within the emperor, offered to search for the source of the bird himself, and arrest the inevitable flow of blood that would come along with such a course of action. The emperor, in a fit of religious fervor and forgetting he was not supposed to know the true nature of the angel, declared some such nonsense about god sanctioning his war, and sent the Aziraphale off on his quest. 

Aziraphale got as far as a mile outside the city gates before he sat down upon an obliging stump and considered what his next moves should be. 

“You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?” said a voice from below him. The angel leaned over and saw a black snake with golden eyes staring up at him.

“However do you mean?” he wondered, unaware that a talking snake should be some cause for alarm. He might be a new alien species come to visit the planet, and it wouldn’t do to have its first interaction be someone screaming and calling for a shovel. 

“Offering to help that lunatic,” the snake specified. “Aren’t you supposed to be an angel?” 

Aziraphale, impressed by this alien’s unusually high intellect, for indeed it must be so if he was so swiftly able to derive the angel’s divine nature, explained that he was not working for the emperor, but was merely trying to stall for time that he might come up with a better solution to the problem. 

“You could have just not interfered,” reasoned the snake. “Then he wouldn’t have gotten all these mad ideas.”

“Yes, but he might have killed whichever servant he thought responsible for the crime, and this way at least I’ve protected whoever that was.” The serpent thought about this for a moment. 

“What will you do if you manage to find the source of the birds?” 

“I’m not sure,” said the angel. “I hadn’t quite got that far.” The snake nodded his head, appearing to have reached some sort of decision.

“Alright, look. Fly this road until you come to a small spaceport. You’ll see two inns opposite each other there, one of which is pleasant and beautiful to look at, but you’re to room in the other, though it may appear to you very poor and mean.”

“That’s fine, it’s good for all god’s creatures to embrace the humble and simple.” If snakes could roll their eyes, the snake would have. 

“Whatever. If you do as I say, you will discover the source of the theft of the golden apples.” 

The angel, delighted to meet such a kind and helpful creature, at once set off upon his way, and all happened as the snake had foretold. When he arrived at the port he avoided the beautiful inn and entered the shabbier one, populated by all manner of brutes with new laser pistols and fancy synth-armor. The angel ate and drank his fill and during the dark hours of the night, as he was reading by phosphorus lamp, he heard furtive movement throughout the place, like dozens of pairs of feet were heading down towards some sort of cellar. It was all quite suspicious, and, remembering what the snake had said, Aziraphale followed the noises down to a secret sub-basement, where he found rooms upon rooms filled with guns, golden mechanical birds, armor, and plans for a great battle to attack the capital and unseat the terrible emperor tacked up on the walls. 

“Oh dear,” the angel mumbled, as he rounded a corner and stumbled into a cadre of revolutionaries armed to the teeth. 

* * *

“We must take him out back and shoot him!”

“Are you insane? Everyone from here to the Capital must have seen him on the road, you want his trail to lead here?”

“If we let him go he’ll run straight to the king and that’ll be the end of us!” 

Aziraphale listened to the rebels argue his fate from within the closet they had locked him in. He could miracle himself out of it, to be sure, but didn’t quite know what to do with himself from there, and thought it might be best to wait it out. 

“Well this is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into,” said a voice from above. It was the snake again, slithering out of a ventilation shaft. “Do you need a hand?” The angel did not need a hand, but he was concerned these rebels did not know what they were getting themselves into. He had lived in the capital for well on twenty years, and knew what defenses lay therin. No amount of mechanical birds or lasers or armour would stand against the massive guns on the city walls, or the turrets mounted before the palace gates. 

“I don't begrudge them the idea, mind” he said after he had explained these ideas to the snake. “Freedom, equality, those are all lovely sentiments. It's just rather difficult to express them when you're lying dead in a ditch.” The snake looked askance at the angel, as if he had never quite seen the like of him. 

“Okay listen. Tell them that-” but at that moment the door opened, and the leader of this band of rebels, an older, elegant woman of eclectic style, (lots of corsets and thigh high boots) stood before him, and introduced herself as Madame Tracy. 

“Why did you come here?” she asked. Aziraphale thought quickly.

“To-to aid in the rebellion, of course. I've seen the Capital, I've seen the things they do there.” The woman looked him up and down, expecting such a response, and had one of her own planned in advance. 

“Very well. We have a test for you. I - we - there’s been some difficulty within the ranks. One of our faction leaders, Shadwell, has broken off, and he took the software for all the tanks and auto-calvary with him. If you manage to bring him back to our fold, we will allow you to join us.” 

The angel agreed, (honestly, anything to get out of that stuffy closet) and when he emerged from the inn and left the port, the snake was waiting for him, as he knew he would be, and Aziraphale explained his new task. The snake buried his face in his tail much the same way a human might do with his hands. 

“So rather than just escape, you've just gotten yourself deeper in?” he concluded when the angel had finished his tale. 

“I couldn’t very well back out now,” Aziraphale protested. 

“Why not?” 

“I’d like to try and help them avoid all the bloodshed, if I can.” The snake chuckled. 

“Well, at least you're making this interesting. Okay. The splinter faction is hiding out about fifty miles east, in a bunker underneath the tallest tree in the heart of a great forest. Shadwell is, ah, a bit of a madman, but he’s also nursing a broken heart, and I don’t know what to do about either of those things, so you’ll have to work that out when you get there.” 

The angel thanked the snake and away he went, flying fast over stock and stone till his hair whistled in the wind. 

All went right, and the entrance to the hideout was well concealed underneath a large and beautiful elm. But as soon as Aziraphale entered the place he found himself at the business end of a laser blunderbuss and a madman was screaming in his ear. 

“Back ye foul demon!” the man on the other end of the weapon screamed at him, “For ye shan’t catch us out o’ sorts!” The angel supposed this must be Shadwell, and seeing as how he did not wish to be discorporeated before he found out how this nonsense would end, detailed the message he had been entrusted with in quiet and unassuming words. But his mention of Madame Tracy only seemed to enrage the man further. 

“That hooooor of Babylon!” Shadwell howled. “I’ll have naught t’do with the harlot.” He sniffed a moment, looked at the wall and added “N’ how dare the wumman not come along herself.” 

“She's rather busy, but -er-” here the angel scrambled to find the common thread between the two - “she misses you very much.” Shadwell froze in his tracks.

“What did ye say?”

“Ah, that she misses you, very much I might add, and that she says she simply can't have a revolution without you?” Shadwell tilted his head and puffed up his chest. 

“Well, tha's diff’rent then. But we mean tae go up against a tiger, and how should we then, with our true leader imprisoned in yon Tower Prison? Tis’ what drove me and the missus apart, it did.” 

“What do you mean?” the angel asked, foreseeing that he would most likely deeply regret this line of questioning. 

“Our leader,  Agnes, has been captured by the king’s forces and lies under threat of death at yon tower, man! How do ye not know?. I made to push forward without her, but Tracy would hear none of it.” Aziraphale waited for the other shoe to drop. 

“Say now, wait a mo’,” Shadwell said. “Ye seem tae be a fearless sort of fellow. Ye must do the deed, rescue Agnes, so as the rest o’ us can get this rebellion back on its feet.” Shadwell was already shoving him out the door. “Don’t worry none o’ me, I'll head back to the missus with the works for the tanks and auto-cavalry.” You just bring Agnes back, but the good Lord help you if they've harmed a hair on her head.” The hideout sprang shut, and Aziraphale was left standing in a clearing beneath a great elm tree, unsure as to what he had just agreed to. 

“Well now you’ve done it,” said the snake, who had been soaking up the sun on a boulder the whole time the angel had been underground. “What’ve you been tasked to do this time?” 

“They want me to rescue their leader, who has been imprisoned by the emperor.” The snake looked at him, stonily. 

“I suppose that’s the end of it, then,” he said, slow and silky. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you’re an angel. I know how you lot feel about rebellion. You can’t go on helping them, now that it’s actually happening.” The snake seemed very upset about this, but Aziraphale had no idea why. 

“That’s ridiculous,” said Aziraphale. “They have free will! They’re allowed to rebel against their kings or emperors or whoever.” He wanted to add that if he could get the ear of their leader, he might be able to caution against the rebellion entirely, that there was perhaps a more subversive and less deadly way to overthrow the emperor, but the snake was furious, and interrupted him before he could. 

“Oh,  _ they’re _ allowed. Fine.” The snake was slithering away. “Go ahead down this road and you can’t miss the Tower Prison, but you won’t need any help from me. The only ones who need help are the ones holding her there.” With that ominous warning, Aziraphale was left alone in the clearing to wonder about the snake’s odd demeanor. But soon it was time to move, and continue along on his quest. 

This too, happened as the snake said, and as the angel approached the prison several hours later there was a terrible boom, and fire exploded out of all the tower’s windows and doors. The angel despaired a moment, as surely none could have survived such a blaze! But as he watched, he saw a distant mass riding out of the fiery inferno and as it came closer he could see that it was a laughing woman on a motorcycle leading several dozen fierce looking men and women upon similar contraptions. She spun her wheels to a stop before the angel, who had stopped in the middle of the road to watch the spectacle in a horrified, fascinated awe. She held up a hand and the dozens behind her followed her lead. 

“Are you Agnes?” the angel asked. 

“Aye, are you the angel from the Capital?” A wise and learned leader indeed. 

“Yes. I’ve been charged to take you back to where your forces are stationed, though you must understand that there is no hope for what you mean to do, and if you make your attempt there will be many dead and yet the cruel emperor Pulsifer will still control the people and all the planet’s resources.” Agnes was no one’s fool, and when she had not been plotting her escape from the emperor’s forces she had been thinking about how to get around the fortifications of the Capital, and explained as much to the angel. 

“I’d hate to risk a frontal assault like you said, but we’re rapidly running out of other options. Sure, we could wait and hope and plan more, but people are starving right now while the emperor cries over his stolen apples. I’ve got my friends here,” and at this those behind her laughed threatening sort of laughs, “Plus my friends out there. It’s not perfect, but someone has to do something, or nothing will ever change.” The angel, who had only vague plans of how else to overthrow the emperor didn’t have much to say in the face of this fatalistic confidence, and allowed her to go on her way to reassemble her troops. Then the angel sat down, because all of his roaming around the countryside and questing after mechanical birds and mad people had been rather a lot for a single few days, especially when one has spent the last several years in the safety of a well booked home. Now hundreds of people were going to die thanks to him while the planet wouldn't be any better for it. A few tears splashed onto the ground below him and he felt rather lonely and miserable. 

Now, who should then come down the road but the snake. The angel did not notice him at first, preoccupied as he was with feeling very sorry for himself, and it wasn’t until he slithered right beside him and dabbed at his tears with the tip of his tail that the angel realized he was there at all. 

“Listen,” said the snake, and his voice was filled with remorse. “You’re a very different kind of angel, aren’t you?” Between barely muted sobs, Aziraphale agreed that he wasn’t very much like his brethren at all.

“I’m not really supposed to be saying any of this, but I’m not a very good sort of demon. And - well, I was supposed to just make some trouble, and I think I’m in a little over my head with this whole thing - because, you know, trouble is one thing, but instigating a whole bloody revolution where some twit of a king or what have you is going to win is a bit… Anyway, I was thinking, we have the leader, the birds, and the cavalry. How about everyone keeps their heads too?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, you’ve still got that flaming sword everyone talks about, right?” 

The snake, you see, had a plan. 

* * *

And so it was that three days, a few talks with the palace guard, one coordinated sneak attack, two and a half backroom dealings between and emperor and a revolutionary (carefully watched over by an angel with a flaming sword and a talking snake with amber eyes), and a single hastily written constitution later, Aziraphale found himself officiating the arranged marriage between Agnes Nutter’s daughter, Anathema, and Emperor Pulsifer’s youngest, mostly capable son, Newt. The people were already calling it the bloodless revolution, and the grand wedding reception Emperor Pulsifer insisted on was passed over in favor of immediate food relief to the people.

After the whole thing had been settled, Aziraphale went to congratulate the snake on a job well done, but though he looked high and low, the snake was nowhere to be found within the castle. The angel headed back out to the clearing where he first met him, and lo, there was the snake, waiting for him, sunning himself on a log and lazily flicking his tongue. 

“Angel?” he asked as Aziraphale approached, and his voice was at once hopeful and sad. “How were the nuptials?” 

“The bride was beautiful and the groom stammered through his vows, but the people are holding elections and being fed, and no rebels are hanging from the city gates.”

“All’s well then,” said the snake, but the angel felt that not  _ all _ was quite well.   

“What will you do now?” asked Aziraphale. 

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about, a bit,” admitted the snake. “But I need a promise from you first.” The angel wanted very much to agree without hesitation, but promises were important, and one should know what was being expected before making any. The snake sensed his reluctance, and tried to explain himself. 

“I’m about to try something, and I’d like it if you could promise not to kill me before it’s done.” The angel thought for a moment. 

“Will you do anything that might cause me harm?” 

“ _ No,”  _ said the snake, and Aziraphale wondered if it was possible for a reptile to look as emphatic as the snake did. 

“Okay. I promise I will not kill you before you are done.” 

“Well, okay. I’ll - er - tell you when I’m through, then.” The snake slithered a bit away from him, there was a flash of darkness, and suddenly the snake was not a snake at all, but a demon in a dark suit and snakeskin shoes. 

Aziraphale’s first instinct was to go for his sword and cleave the demon’s head from his shoulders, but he had made a promise, and the demon had, in the guise of a snake, helped him avert the deaths of possibly millions. (It helped both that Aziraphale had never been a very by-the-book sort of angel, and that the demon was easily one of the most beautiful creatures the angel had ever seen. All that had fallen was once divine, after all.) 

The demon approached him slowly, watching for any hint that Aziraphale would renege on his vow. 

He was getting  _ quite _ close, and the angel could see that the eyes, inches from his own, were the same as the snake’s. 

Then the demon kissed him. 

It was only for a fraction of a second, and the demon sprang back at once, afraid to meet the angel’s eyes. 

“So, um, that was it. If you want to try and fight me or anything, you’ve held up your end of the bargain. I mean, I’d much rather prefer if you didn’t but I if you’ve got to maintain your angelic ideals, or whatever.” Aziraphale was looking at him, astonished, and the demon began to panic. “Look, we can just forget it. It’s, you know, I’ve never really quite met anything like you before, and I thought to myself ‘Crowley, you’ll never get another shot at this, might as well-’”  

Then the angel finally roused from his stupor and stopped his babbling with another kiss. This one was, the angel liked to think, a proper kiss, and certainly the noises that the demon was making would indicate the same. They pulled apart, and stared at each other for a moment or two, a bit dazed, until Aziraphale finally found his voice. 

“Oh, I think you’ll have another shot, my dear.” 

They were careful to leave out what happened next in the reports back to their respective superiors. 

 


	4. The Tinder-Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley returns from a tempting with nothing to show for it but bad chocolate, and he is about to learn all about translation errors, witches with meddling grandmothers, that some princes locked in towers aren't really princes at all, why angels make bad research subjects, and why it might be a good idea to fund the education system so public executions can stop being the primary form of entertainment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by MadwomanInABox
> 
> The Tinder-Box is a lovely and weird little story about dogs with giant eyes that get summoned by a magic Tinder-Box. 
> 
> There's only one dog in this version.

A demon came marching along the high road. He had a bottle of wine in one hand which he swung to and fro and a bar of chocolate he wished was just a little more chocolatey in the other; he had been to Belgium to do a bit of tempting, and was now returning home. 

As he walked on, he met a lovely young witch in the road. She fixed her glasses, stopped and said “Good evening, demon. Have a nice weekend in Antwerp?”

“Not as nice as I’d like, I’m afraid,” the demon, Crowley, answered without hesitation. Witches were privy to all sorts of wild information, and the fact that she knew what he was and what he had been doing wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. “It gets harder to tempt them every year,” he lamented. 

“Well, would you mind doing me a favor then, and I promise your trip shall not be a total loss?” Crowley finished the last of the bottle of wine, tossed it in the grass where it was miracled into a bewildered rabbit that hurried off into the trees and said “Why not. I’ve not much else to do.” 

“Do you see that large tree?” asked the witch, pointing to a magnificent hemlock which stood beside them. “It is quite hollow, and if you fly to the top you will see a hole through which you can let yourself down into the tree to a great depth.” This was beginning to sound like a whole lot of bugs and bark all over his nice suit to Crowley, who prided himself on his appearance, and was about to tell the witch to forget the whole thing. 

“And when you’re down there you’ll see a vast hall lit by many lamps that contains one large golden door. If you go inside you’ll see a hellhound seated upon an iron chest, but though he has eyes as big as towers, do not let that trouble you. Simply call him by his name, Dog, and he cannot hurt you, and you can bring the chest up to the surface for me.”

“I’m sorry,” interrupted Crowley, “Eyes as big as towers? Is that some kind of translation error? It seems like the kind of thing you'd attribute to a translation error." The young witch shrugged. She knew her place in the story, and it was not to question the words within it.

“Probably,” she agreed. “But nevertheless that’s what my grandmother’s book says, and it’s her treasure I’m after and you’ve agreed to retrieve, so we might as well play our parts.”

“And what do I get out of this, for surely you understand that I’m not about to do all of this for nothing.”

“Of course not!” said the witch. “You may have the old tinder-box, which my grandmother left behind the last time she went down there, and which here is writ is to be the turning point of your destiny.” The witch took out an old and much read book, and pointed to the passage in question, which indeed stated that the author's granddaughter should meet a demon on this very day, drinking wine and eating chocolate which was not as good as everyone made Belgian chocolate out to be - here Crowley was quite impressed at the scope of the prophecy - and that this demon should be gifted the tinderbox as a reward for retrieving the chest, and this tinderbox would be the making of him. 

“But why’d she put the chest down there in the first place? And how?” Crowley was already unfurling his wings (best not to go against prophecy, all those Greek kings tried that and look where they all ended up: dead by the hands of all the babes they left to die in the wilderness) but he did like to know why he was doing a thing before it happened. When he Fell, as all demons once had, he hadn’t really read any of the fine print, and he was eager that he might not trip into some additional Fall again. 

“Who knows why our ancestors do anything, but done things they have and here we all are to clean up their messes. Are you going or no?” Crowley wanted to tell her that he had no ancestors, and the only one responsible for any of his mistakes was himself, but there was a bed at the end of this road he wished to have a decently long sleep in, and he best get on with the task if he wanted to see it before the day was out. 

“Very well,” said Crowley, and flew up to the top of the tree, where he found a hollow wide enough to drop through, and it all happened as the young witch had said. Here was the hall lit by many lamps, with one golden door at the end. He opened the door and there sat the hell-hound with enormous red eyes that burned with all the fires of hell. 

“Oh!” Crowley exclaimed in understanding. “They’re as large as the  _ diameter  _ of the base of the tower. That makes much more sense.” Chuckling about how so many things are lost when translating from one text to another, The Bible being the best example, Crowley gently called to the dog. 

“Dog,” he cooed, paying no mind at all to the inch-long razor sharp teeth or the claws made for rending demons and humans to shreds. “Dog, come off that iron chest now, it’s not for you.” Upon hearing his name twice, the dog at once transformed into a loveable mongrel small enough to fit into a fine lady’s pocket. (Pockets were much larger in those days, you understand, none of this fake pocket or inch and a half deep pocket nonsense. If a women wanted to stuff a few loaves of bread in there to go running through the fields she had the room and was welcome to it.) He patted the dog on the head absentmindedly as he surveyed the rest of the room, here indeed was the tinder-box sitting atop the iron chest, and he picked up the lot of it - Dog included - and flew back out through the hollow in the tree. 

“Here you are, witch,” he said as he presented her with the iron box, and questioned oh- so-nonchalantly, “Will you open it now?” Crowley wasn’t fooling anyone, he was curious and he wanted to know why anyone would go to so much trouble to conceal an ordinary looking chest. The contents must certainly be wondrous. 

“I don’t see why not,” said the witch. “Help me with the lid.” The pair plucked the lid off the chest and inside lay a dreadfully typical looking young man with glasses in a state of extreme confusion. 

“Hello?” he said, weakly. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but I’ve been in there an awfully long time and I really appreciate the rescue.” But as these words the young witch flew into a rage. 

“If this is her way of trying to get me to settle down, and raise the next generation of witches she’s got another thing coming!” the witch declared. “Did my grandmother lock you up?” she rounded on the young man, who cowered further into the box, and was beginning to think that perhaps being kidnapped, locked up in a trunk, placed in magical hall under a tree and guarded by a hellhound was nothing compared to the fury to be found in a woman’s face. 

“I don’t - I’m not sure,” he mumbled, and Crowley thought it best to take his leave and let the pair work out their differences amongst themselves. He dropped the tinder-box into his pocket and walked off to town, but it was not long until he realized he was being followed. 

“I suppose you’re a part of whatever destiny the witch promised me?” he said to the dog once they had gone three miles. “It would be foolish to try and get rid of you, you’d just show up in the middle of the night sitting on my chest or something, so you can come along but no more of that flaming eye business, we’re going to be among regular people and that sort of thing makes them nervous and a bunch of nervous people can whip themselves into an angry mob before you’ve even got a word in edgewise.” The dog tilted its head to the side, as if considering the proposal, then happily trotted down the road a few steps to wait for the demon. The demon remembered the bed that awaited him, sighed, and followed. 

Once he had found the dog some food, reached his magnificent rooms, slept for three days straight and miracled himself some better chocolate, Crowley headed out into town to see if he could at least get some tempting done here, but instead the town was abuzz with some very big news: a handsome prince had arrived in town, but had yet to be seen in public; he was being kept inside the castle by the king. 

“Well then how do you know he’s so handsome?” Crowley questioned the innkeeper who supplied this hot gossip. “Either he’s handsome or no one’s seen him, you can’t have it both ways.” The innkeeper was flustered and annoyed by the droll gent with the dark glasses, and told him that if he couldn’t keep up his end of the relationship between the man who supplied the drinks and he who consumed them, he could very well find someplace else to drink his wine and he could take his mangy dog with him. 

“Whatever,” said Crowley, rising from his seat. “ _ I’m _ going to meet this handsome prince, and I’ll be able to make whatever judgements for myself." Before he slammed the door open he added "and what kind of monster yells at a dog?” With that, Crowley walked from the inn right up to the castle, and though he had made it so that none should have seen him or stopped him, he came up against an invisible barrier as soon as he tried to step through the palace gates. The dog at his side had no such trouble, and was a few steps into the courtyard before realizing his master was no longer beside him. 

“It’s some kind of spell,” Crowley grumbled as they made their way back to his rooms. “But we’ll find a way around it, you mark my words.” (He was actually rather nervous, as these sorts of things were not typically found on Earth, and when he encountered them a painful discorporation and meeting with some duke of hell or another was usually soon to follow.) When the pair returned, Dog at once went to Crowley’s bedchamber and brought back the tinder-box in his teeth. Crowley looked from the tinder-box to the dog three times before striking the flint and steel and sending a shower of sparks down to the wooden floorboards. 

“What orders, master?” said Dog, and so shocked was he that Crowley sprang from his seat and backed away, towards the door. 

“Are you serious?” Dog asked, incredulously, and explained that he was obviously not a normal dog, when he met Crowley he had flaming eyes as large as a tower’s base for Satan's sake, why was the demon making a big show of it now? Crowley, calming down a bit, couldn’t find a suitable argument against that, and sat back down. 

“So, what, you’re some kind of servant?” 

“Yes, though I’m only yours for a time,” replied Dog. “Now that that’s all settled, what orders, Master?” But Crowley had a few more questions and wanted nothing but answers. 

“How come I couldn’t pass through the palace gates but you could?” 

“That’s not an order,” said Dog, testily, but supplied the answer anyway. “There’s a spell on the place, preventing all angels from going in or out.”

“I’m not an angel,” Crowley protested. Dog looked at the demon like he had never heard anything more stupid in his entire life. “Well, fine,” the demon conceded. “But I’m no  _ longer _ an angel.” 

“Doesn’t matter. That’s what the spell is for. Beings like you.”

“Why would there be a spell like that here?” 

“How should I know? Now are you going to tell me to grab that prince for you or not?” Crowley had to admit that with all the excitement about spells and talking dogs he had forgotten the prince completely. 

“Sure, bring me the prince, if that’s something you can do,” the demon said. “Oh, and see if you can bring me the entire wine cellar of that damned innkeeper while you're out.”

“With pleasure,” said the dog, and he disappeared instantly. Crowley had exactly enough time to wonder how long he should have to wait when the dog came bounding through the door with the prince on his back and in another instant over a hundred bottles of wine in their racks materialized on the walls. 

“What on earth is going on?” wondered the prince, who Crowley could see plainly was not a prince at all, but was an  _ angel  _ (of all things), and clamped down on the greeting working its way up his throat.  

“Fuck,” he said instead, and prepared himself for battle, for never had he met an angel that didn’t immediately try and tear him to pieces. 

“I hope you understand there’s no need for that sort of language,” said the angel, who was looking just as confused as the poor young man in the iron chest had been. “I appreciate the rescue, but I’m not sure why you’ve done it and wasn’t quite done with what I needed to do at the castle so if you could just tell me-”

“No, no,” said Crowley. “You’re not going to lure me into a false sense of security with that innocent blue eyed confusion act.”

“I beg your pardon?” 

"Let's get on with it. The flaming axe, or arrows, or sword or what have you." He beckoned to the angel, who held nothing in his hands but a book edged in gold, but which the demon was positive could be changed into a heavenly instrument of destruction at any moment. But the angel didn’t summon anything, instead he closed his finger on his place in the book and huffed. 

"I mean, do we have to?" the angel asked, like the whole thing was ridiculous, like Crowley having the  _ gall _ to believe an angel might want to hurt him was both annoying and slightly offensive.

"I - no," said Crowley, who felt as if there was a second part of this conversation happening he was wholly unaware of, "but don't you - aren't you supposed to?" 

"Sure, but your hellhound did just rescue me from a bit of an awkward situation that heaven chose not to get involved with and, pardon me for saying so, you don't look very much like a demon ready and willing to do battle."

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't." Crowley was perhaps more aggressive than the situation called for. 

"Well then why don't we just take a minute and figure out what’s going on?" 

"Fine." Crowley agreed, and warily sat down at the table, miracling two glasses and snatching one of the bottles of wine off the rack at hand. The angel, who introduced himself as Aziraphale, sat across from him, complimented the wine, and asked how in the world Crowley managed to breach the spellwork of the king’s that had trapped Aziraphale inside the castle. 

"I didn't do anything," the demon said by way of explanation. "I got turned back when I tried to break in, just as sure as you did trying to get out." 

"Why did you try and get in at all? Did you know about all this?” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Was this some kind of directive from Hell?" 

"Of course not, All I wanted to do was prove a point to a stupid man who yelled at my dog." 

“Oh,” Aziraphale blinked in surprise. “Well, did you?”

“Did I what?” 

“Prove the point.” 

“Oh that! Er-” Crowley looked the angel up and down. “Sort of.” (Crowley stoically ignored the fact that he had, in fact, proved the opposite: the angel was rather handsome. But he wasn’t a handsome  _ prince _ , so there.) “Why did you get trapped in the castle?” 

Through an narrative twisted by embarrassment, the angel explained that the king was rumored to have in his possession a rare bible, and as the angel was a bit of a collector, he sought to negotiate the purchase of the book. Unfortunately, for Aziraphale, the king wasn’t just a collector of books and occult texts, he had a voracious appetite for them. He had deduced Aziraphale’s true nature and performed some sort of incantation or another that prevented Aziraphale from leaving the castle by foot or by wing, and the king was attempting to study him in an effort to write his own manuscript on the hierarchy of the angels. (It wasn’t going very well, Aziraphale didn’t like being told when he could and couldn’t leave a place, and all the king’s quills kept catching fire the moment they were put to paper.) Aziraphale had free run of the library though, and had been carefully cataloguing all of the king’s books, deciding which the king should be relieved of as punishment upon the angel’s release. But his escape had been caught up in a great deal of red tape in heaven, and he had just been beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t make his own break for it when a dog appeared on the library’s table, threw the angel on his back - 

“And the next thing I knew you were yelling expletives and trying to get me to fight you,” Aziraphale finished. 

“Right, sorry about that,” Crowley apologized. “I’m just not used to angels who are more interested in reading than in thwarting.” The angel smiled.

“I’ve been on Earth a very long time,” he admitted. “I don’t have much in common with my brethren anymore.” That was a good an explanation as any for the demon, who was of a similar mind, and told the angel all about it. Go off and do a whole month of tempting and all you get for it was sub-par chocolate and a whole lot of headaches, but try explaining that to the princes and dukes of hell, who got their horns all in a twist over a single priest noticing a beautiful woman or a child knocking down another in a schoolyard brawl. 

“Just dreadful,” the angel confirmed. 

They made plans to meet again later in the week, and Crowley had Dog bring Aziraphale back to inventorying the kings books. So it went for many months. The angel would do his work during the day and Crowley would summon him out of the castle via Dog in the evenings, where they would drink the innkeeper’s wine and reminisce about places that had been and wonder how it was that they had been on Earth so long and yet never run into each other. 

But the king was no fool, and he knew the angel had been escaping in the evenings. He tried doubling the protections, but the angel got away nevertheless. He tried tracking spells, magic potions, and was halfway to tempting the wrath of heaven itself by putting the angel in chains until one night the angel made a dreadful mistake.

He and the demon had split four bottles of wine and then got to arguing about whether or not the missing lines of the epic of Gilgamesh were or were not a badly executed political satire that had no context in the modern world at all (Crowley said it was, Aziraphale said it wasn’t, but even so, it was beautiful and shouldn’t have been cut.) and in the middle of all of it Crowley had started reciting Egyptian poetry from memory and then Aziraphale didn’t have a choice but to respond with select passages from the Upanishads. One thing led to another and the end of it was that the sun was high in the sky, Aziraphale still had not returned to the castle, and one of Crowley’s neighbors had lodged a complaint with his landlord about a pair of “great heath’n birds” fluttering about the building the previous evening. It didn’t take long for word to reach the king, and just as Crowley awoke from where he had fallen asleep fully clothed and hanging halfway out of his bed a dozen of the king’s men burst into the room.

"Here is the man that's been stealing my research!" the king shouted, and Crowley was irritated to find a dozen spear points aimed as his chest. He looked over at Aziraphale, who had fallen asleep on the sofa and was still coming to terms with his hangover (negotiations were proceeding poorly), and all the angel could do was shake his head quickly. 

"Please?" Crowley asked him, ignoring the king's ongoing ranting entirely, already heating up the handles of the spears and causing the guards to exchange uncomfortable looks.

"I'd rather you didn't, my dear," Aziraphale said, quietly. Crowley groaned. 

"Will you be alright?"

“Of course.”

“Fine,” Crowley muttered, and allowed himself to be clapped in chains. 

Rather luckily for the demon, while the king prided himself on recognizing angels, he had no idea at all what demons were like, and the dungeon Crowley was led to was neither magicked or enchanted against him in any way, though it was quite damp and disagreeable. He could walk right out if he chose, but this king had gotten on his bad side, and he felt that a public humiliation would perhaps be best for all concerned, and where this would take place was determined easily enough, as the guards were quite fond of rattling the bars of his cage and telling him how he was to be hanged in the morning. This left Crowley free to spend the night concocting complicated revenge scenarios and drawing up really zingy one-liners he might say to look very smooth and impressive. 

When dawn broke, he could see out of the little iron window in his cell how the people were hurrying to the gallows on the edge of town, there were drums beating, soldiers marching, and he half wondered if there would be parade floats as well. But there was a boy there who was not rushing along, he was, in fact, rather dejectedly seated on a fence and swinging his legs back and forth, watching the crowds with an envious glare. 

“Hey, kid,” Crowley called down him. The boy, who was called Adam, looked up. 

"Me?" 

“Yeah, you. Come over here.” 

“Aren’t you the one that’s supposed to get hung?” Adam asked. Crowley replied that indeed he was. “Do you think you could hold off a day? I’m not allowed to go as punishment even though all my friends are going, but by tomorrow my father will forget and I’ll be able to watch.” Sparing a thought on how television, public education, and widespread literacy would vastly improve the lives of children everywhere and reduce the entertainment value of a public execution, Crowley told the boy he would be happy to do so, if the boy could do him a small favor. 

“If you run to the house where I’ve been living, and bring me the tinder-box you find there, I promise that there will be no hanging today.” Adam agreed to his terms, and fetched the tinder-box before the guards could come to drag Crowley away to his hanging, and when they finally showed up Crowley went with them willingly, whistling cheerfully as they clapped him in irons and sat him in an open cart to take him to the gallows. 

The populace was extremely frustrated that all the rotten vegetables and fruit they attempted to pelt him with kept being diverted at the last second, and it was with a clean, sharp suit that Crowley climbed the steps to the gallows to face the king, who sat on a splendid throne on a platform raised above the crowd. To his left stood Aziraphale, also in chains, but the chains that held the angel were far from ordinary: they were carved with sigils to prevent his escape. At the sight of them Crowley felt a cool anger coil within his chest, and all the elaborate plans he had conjured the night before went straight out the window. 

Crowley’s shackles dropped to the ground, and he struck the tinder-box once. Dog appeared next to him, startling the crowd and causing the king to spring to his feet, sputtering and shouting for his guards. 

“Dog, take care of the king, will you?” 

Without a single pithy comment Dog sprang from the gallows to the throne in a single bound.

“You will not touch me!” cried the king, but Dog seized him by the throat and shook him about like a rag doll and threw him over the city walls. Suddenly, Crowley was standing next to Aziraphale, where he ripped the angel’s chains all to pieces, and then bent down to pat Dog on the head for a job well done. 

The people on the ground, who might have been shocked by the spectacle if the king were a better ruler and there hadn't been so many public executions to attend, began to call to him. “You must now be our king!” came the shout from the crowd, and while it was a sight more pleasant than what Crowley often heard from masses of people with torches in their hands shouting at him, ruling this little duchy was about as desirable as a visit from a prince of hell. 

“Absolutely not,” Crowley told them. “Write a constitution, or hold some elections or something, just leave me out of it.” Leaving the peasants to hammer out such weighty matters as the natural rights of man and the social contract between the government and the governed, Crowley offered the angel his arm.

“Shall we, angel?” 

“Let’s, my dear.” But Crowley held up his hand, remembering Adam. 

“Ah, hang on, there's just one matter to tend to first.” 

The pair headed back to the prison, where Adam still sat sullenly upon the fence outside, though he perked right up when he saw Crowley was not yet dead.  

“How’d you get out?” he asked, and yet his tone implied that perhaps he knew the tinder-box he handed over wasn’t a tinder-box at all.

“Had some help from a very good dog,” Crowley replied. “And I’m afraid there won’t be a hanging tomorrow, either, sorry about that.” Adam shrugged. 

“It’s alright. You seem okay, and it wouldn’t be as much fun, since I know you now.” The demon allowed that grim reality to lie for a moment before brightening and asking Adam if he was interested in pet adoption. 

“I’ve always wanted a dog,” said Adam, eyes eager and wide. “But I don’t know if my parents would -”

“I - I can assure you, there will be no issues there,” interrupted Aziraphale, and he and Crowley shared a knowing look. 

“Alright then,” and with that Crowley handed Adam the tinder-box, and Dog leapt up to lick the boy’s face. 

“What’s his name?” asked Adam.

“Dog,” said Crowley, and the boy agreed that it was a good, proper name for the creature.

With a final farewell to Adam and Dog, the angel and the demon flew off from that place together. They returned shortly thereafter to miracle away the kings entire library, and where it is now no one can say, although there is somewhere a quiet bookstore in a bustling city, where they say many books on the occult can be found, but if you ask to purchase one the owner will refuse, suddenly claim to have an emergency, and hustle you back out onto the street. 

You'll not be able to find the place ever again. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm open to suggestions for different fairy tales if there's something you'd like to see. 
> 
> Feel free to check out my other Good Omens fics, and I'm also on tumblr as @soft-october-night if you'd like to come by and say hello!


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